Fingerpicked

Open D tuning

Feels like the ghost of Django would file a formal complaint.

Haha..do any of you use a Selmer style guitars outside of traditional techniques?

Id love some suggestions for how folks handle solo GJ gigs? Id think some of the more ballad stuff goes over better?

On a related note if there is anyone in this community that would want to come to the Paonia / Hotchkiss area of western Colorado a couple times a month and get a regular thing going let me know!

I had to lower the frets quite a bit to level them probably.

Now the the guitar feels weak and lifeless. I feel I can't hammer the strings and play loud like a usually do.

I think there is still lots of fret height left (especially compared to my other guitars).

I'm just so disappointed. Band practise last night was a bit of a challenge. :(

Thoughts? Suggestions?

I know there low E buzzes now, because the zero fret is lower. Is it possible the nut is too high and not putting enough pressure on the strings?

Nando seems to use his thumb and index more and his wrist less. Great tone. Any thoughts?

It’s odd, when I think about it. I think most of us who lead off a song just go for a feel for the tempo and then start the tune. I find myself thinking, or, actually really not thinking but feeling, that some tunes just lend themselves to a more energetic speed and I’m looking to get to it, whether I or someone else started the song.

Here I'm working some Book II CVH licks and a few of my own over What Is This Thing Called Love. The triplet licks don't land nicely on the beat and I'm working through that. Mostly they are licks that I know well but I tend to rush them.

Anyway, it's probably against the Geneva convention to make someone watch this but maybe someone finds it interesting. Record some practice and post it here?

For some reason the backing track keeps skipping at one part, didn't help. I am using CVH's very long backing tracks but in Amazing slow downer to get them to a good tempo for me.

2. Best tips on technique for tone.

3. Gear tips for tone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfM4BZ8my-w

Is there a reason for holding the guitar the traditional way for this style of music, or is it simply tradition?

What an amazing experience. Six very high quality concerts over three days, jam sessions all over the place and a wonderful atmosphere. I met people I'd heard about but never had the pleasure. I got to jam with Adrien Marco!! I learnt a couple of new songs. I did a 2 hour workshop with Amati Schmitt. I'm inspired. I'm partly out of my depth, but also feel like I may improve with a bit of focus.

I took my Gitane 270 Andy MacKenzie guitar and had some nice comments about it, even from the luthiers. I met Killy Nonis, Robert Ford, Marek Homola and Jerome Duffell - legends in guitar making, and played their guitars (I could have bought one from each of them!!!!).

I jammed a bit (not enough) with all sorts of lovely people - great players.

The Amati Schmitt All Stars were absolutely wonderful - immaculate playing from all, but also completely heart-felt music with soul and passion.

A festival I most definitely will return to next year, and every year I'm sure.

Any thoughts on mic placement in front of my instrument? I'll be using my Di Mauro Chorus style JWC guitar with F-holes. It's a little darker than many guitars, but it can really sing on solos played a little closer to the bridge. There's a small picture of my guitar as part of my profile, if you want to see it.

I just want to play acoustic jazz and be able to switch to dreadnought without feeling an expansive chasm between the two right hand techniques. It's like playing two completely different instruments entirely, except they're both guitars.

Just as a side note, playing jazz on a dreadnought sounds awful in my opinion. Time to look around for a decent archtop, or alternative, as I've never felt good picking a Selmer using alternating picking like Olli does. Guys like Frank Vignola, Jonathon Stout, and Matt Munisteri seem to be using alternating picking technique on their archtops with great success, while still being able to jam with gypsy pickers.

What's your thoughts on this?

Hey Djangobooks, been awhile. I hope y'all enjoy this compact video trying to capture many of the nuances with Swing Feel.

This is the best iv've seen Jimmy play since his return from the dark side. The sloppiness seems to be gone and he seems alert and energized. Although he's not what he once was, I'm leaving room for the possibility that he becomes even greater.♥️

I wondered, at first, if the weight of the guitar pulling on the neck sideways would affect tuning. It does not. 

Another happy observation, however, is that I had noticed a tendency, when the guitar was on my knee, to push against the guitar with my arm resting on the body. This caused me to control the angle with my fretting hand, and this resulted in extra unwarranted tension in my left hand while playing, which also communicated more tension to my right arm and picking hand. 

The upshot is, having the guitar suspended has given me a chance to rework and rethink tension and relaxation of both hands, fingers and arms. It also allows me to sit back, cross my legs in either direction, which has always subconsciously signaled to my body and mind to play relaxed and without tension. I used to sometimes cross my right over my left leg in an attempt to mimic Django’s pose, in the hope of producing less tension. It often worked.

Of "Manouche" origin, Christophe Lartilleux-Hart, was brought up in a travelling circus (Hart-Goujon), run by gipsy performers and musicians. he was taught to play by his father, Yvon, himself guitarist (who played many years with the accordionist Maurice Vittenet, Jo Privat).

He had many musicals influences. From jazz fusion to bop, including flamenco, classic and hard rock, he played with some musicians as different as Yoshko Seffer, Alain Caron, Florin Niculescu, Laurent Korcia...

But his first love was always the gipsy guitar, and Latcho Drom (meaning "have a good journey" in manouche language) is the realisation of his dream to create the Hot Club de France sounds of Grappelli and Reinhardt's famous quintet.

Latcho drom was formed in the French town of Toulouse in 1993 by the gipsy guitarist Christophe LARTILLEUX, in order to revive the atmosphere of the famous Django REINHARDT Hot Club de France Quintet with Stéphane Grappelli or Gus Viseur...Christophe, surrounded himself with young talended jazz musicians, impassioned by Django' music, with his acoustic band, he revives the sound and the swing of those times, (especially by using the famous Selmer guitars), while developing his own personality and originality. Immediately the group was extremely successful, and has never stopped performing all over the world.

There’s a teeny weeny something I haven’t been able to do

And I’m curious to see whether any of you young punks and/or seasoned virtuosos can

• lie in bed with your guitar over your torso, no plectrum please
• just hold your guitar ready to play but don’t play, and see how much you can RELAX yourself
• when you really feel relaxed, you are ready to begin
• now play anything you want to, single notes or chords but STAY RELAXED…
• keep your playing very simple if you need to, this is all about STAYING RELAXED
• keep playing but keep checking yourself to make sure you are STAYING RELAXED
• as soon as you feel yourself tensing up, stop playing!
• how long did you last?
• I can only last for a few seconds, my mind quickly jumps to the music and I forget to RELAX!
• Good luck!

"Nobody wants to do the work, you just want to play. Music don't work like that." JB

This is a rough estimate. Objects fall at about 4.9 centimeters per second. This is about 2 inches (1.92913 to be exact) per second. If you start your down stroke about 1/4 inch above the string, it will take about 1/8 of a second to hit the string, or 240 bpm, which is the maximum bpm for the most relaxed down stroke, just to reach the string. This does not factor in passing through the sting and coming back up. Without doing the math, I think you can determine that, in order to play at 300 bpm, a fully relaxed wrist that uses only gravity is not possible, but muscles must be used.

#nerdfest

I wanted to post this question to the hive mind. I know this overlaps with recent and not-so-recent discussions concerning practice approaches. But, I wanted to home in on metronome strategies and create a post that could be used to gather as much.

Conventional wisdom around here says to start slow and increase speed gradually over days and weeks. It's also widely recommended to break songs and licks into digestible pieces. Persistence, repetition, and elbow grease enhance one's efforts, of course. My main thesis about metronome use is that hitting whatever you are working on at different speeds and timings limbers you up and enables mastery in a way that simply working up from slow doesn't.

I've poked around a bit (on youtube) and absorbed the input of a few metalheads combined with the insights of a few violin players. Here's what I do based my summing of available wisdom on the matter. I memorize whatever the heck it is before I hit the metronome. I, yes, start slow. I break the piece into lick-like chunks (or smaller). I practice the chunks 3-10x (or more if I daze out), incrementing 3 clicks on the metronome each time. I work up to my top speed. I push past that speed until I crash and burn. I cut the metronome back to half my top speed and work back up. I should move by one-click increments when hitting top speeds. But, by the time I hit the top, I'm sick of it.

My results have been good. It's like steroids for my playing. All my sh*te gets tighter and faster, both on a per-session and over-time basis.

Down side is.. sometimes I feel like it takes too much time and and that I should just practice fast and slow. But still, no matter what the metronome approach is, I believe, it boosts playing and is essential for any true advancement in the genre.

So, do tell y'all. How do you think the metronome thing should be done?

Thanks in advance for yer input.

Thanks for any help.